ARGENTINA: New Alliance Prepares to Stand Against Menem

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 4 1997 (IPS) - A new alliance between the two main opposition parties in Argentina presented a future alternative to President Carlos Menem, offering economic stability, better job opportunities, independence, justice and transparency.

In an atmosphere of enthusiasm and optimism, the Radical Civic Union (UCR) and Frente Pais Solidario (Frepaso) formed an alliance to compete with the ruling party, Sunday, starting work on a common agenda for Congress and the October elections.

Former president Raul Alfonsin (in power from 1983 to 1989) will lead the bipartheid commission which will monitor fulfilment of the pacts with an eye on the 1999 presidential elections, when one leader of each coalition party will be presented as alliance candidates.

The government tried to write off the new “Alliance for Work, Justice and Education,” saying it was an electoral union with no real programme.

However, off the record, the ruling party is justifiably worried.

For Menem has plunged from popularity following his reelection in 1995. Since September 1996 he has had a positive image with barely 12 percent of those polled by the Graciela Romer company.

For nearly a year, his government has made no advances on two controversial issues: unemployment and corruption, and it is just these two issues which are of most concern to those surveyed, said the polling company.

Unemployment affects 16 percent of the active population and Transparency International classed Argentina 11th on the list of nations most vulnerable to corruption.

The polling service said the alliance could win the elections on October 26, and it got a sound, though surprised, reception from the business sector.

A coalition had been attempted on various previous occasions, but advances were only made last Friday, and settled early Sunday morning.

Leaders of the chambers of business people said the new alliance would not affect either stability or foreign investments, and that its arguments fit in with demands for independent transparency and justice from the international funders like the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“No one is going to put stability at risk,” said Senator Graciela Fernandez Meijide, leading Frepaso candidate for deputy of the province of Buenos Aires.

“This is an alliance for those who want a State promoting employment, work, justice, education, health, an alliance for people sick of corruption,” said the candidate.

She called on non governmental, union, business and church entities to back the move too.

“We have to listen to the churches, which are substituting the State in social responsibility, and provide a space for the public so that their voice can help modify the situation,” she said.

Economic journalist Marcelo Bonelli said the alliance would be calling for a more distributive tax policy – like that of the British Labour Party – greater Congress support for the small and middle-sized companies, job creation projects and an increased education budget.

Former economy minister Domingo Cavallo, who is standing as deputy for his own party, said the agreement “is very positive because it helps clarify the political panorama.”

For Cavallo, the government has taken the right and the alliance the left, leaving him in the centre.

The proposed union agreement sent shock waves through the public who flooded radio and television stations with calls to celebrate the decision.

“Today is a happy day for me. This alliance shows that politics are finally maturing and that there is light at the end of the tunnel,” said one Radio Mitre listener.

The alliance was announced in the headlines of the Sunday papers with photographs showing a team of relaxed and smiling, but tired, opposition leaders drinking a toast together around a table.

Sunday night, they all appeared on a TV programme together, taking part in an enthusiastic, happy political dialogue which transmitted a sense of anticipated victory.

Mayor of Buenos Aires, Fernando de la Rua, stressed the “common moral base of the protagonists of both sides of this alliance, and their shared ethical stance.”

He said it was a case of a group of well looked-upon leaders getting together.

President of the Radical Civic Union, Rodolfo Terragno, said the alliance “is the most important political event of the decade, as it shows there is an alternative capable of substituting the government.”

Surveys show that if the intention to vote for each of the allied parties is pulled together, there is a high chance of triumph.

In Buenos Aires, the largest body of voters in the nation, 41 percent supported the ruling party candidate, and 34 percent, Fernandez. With the added 18 percent which went to the Frepasa candidate, Alfonsin, Fernandez would have won.

And even though analysts stressed an alliance does not always take the sum of the votes of the individual parties, the alliance leaders are sure their voters would not change to support the government.

Radical leader Marta Oyhanarte, of the Citizen Power Foundation, predicted “the more orthodox electorate will present a spoiled paper, but many doubters will flood the alliance with their votes.”

The ruling party currently holds a majority in Congress, with 126 seats to the Radical’s 68 and Frepaso’s 22, but this could turn around rapidly in October.